The Episcopal

Diocese of Lexington

The Lessons of Remarriage After Divorce For Our Current Church Experience

By The Rt. Rev. Stacy Sauls

As a community of Christians, we find ourselves struggling with the gift of sexuality and its potential for misuse.  The issues now before us now involve homosexuality, specifically (1) the place of homosexual persons in the Church, (2) whether some same sex relationships (i.e., only those marked by the qualities of mutual love and respect, exclusivity between partners, and lifelong commitment) might be accepted and supported in the Church, and (3) what role homosexual persons living in such relationships might play in the leadership of the Church. 

Many seek to apply traditional teaching to an understanding of human sexuality in which same sex orientation is seen as part of the reality of the complex gift of human sexuality in which some people, for whatever reason, are oriented to be attracted to the same sex rather than the opposite sex.  Most of us acknowledge that same sex orientation, in and of itself, is not sinful.

As people of differing opinions on the issues, it is imperative that we repudiate the suggestion that the answers to the problems we face are clear or unambiguous, so that those who disagree with us are necessarily understood as evil or ignorant.  To do otherwise honors neither God, whose mind is complex beyond human understanding, nor each other as God’s children.  Men and women of equal devotion to Scripture, commitment to Christ, intelligence, and faithfulness can and do hold different positions on these issues and many others, although we confess that we do not always understand positions contrary to our own.  It is not that all positions, because they are held by reasonable and faithful people are true.  It is, though, that the fact that reasonable and faithful people hold different positions suggests that the truth we seek is not clear.  Our different positions often carry with them a deep emotional significance, again on all sides of the issues, which only makes understanding each other and God more difficult.

The first issue we face is the place of homosexual persons in the Church.  We seek to lead all people into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, to incorporate them in Christ’s Church, and to care pastorally for them in a way that helps all to grow into the full stature of Christ.  The pastoral question now before us is the appropriate standards of sexual behavior for disciples of Jesus Christ.  Sexual behavior, of course, is only one among many issues of behavior that affect Christian discipleship. 

Our commitment to the pastoral care of all might lead us to an important insight.  Perhaps if we could come to understand the issue we now face regarding homosexual relationships as an issue of pastoral care within the context of leading all the Church’s members in the ways that lead to eternal life, we might find a better way to pursue our discernment of truth by maintaining the peace and order of the community we share and cherish.  A review of the Church’s recent history reveals an important parallel in which our employment of a pastoral approach has served us well.

The issue of remarriage after divorce may provide a model.  The theological issues raised by remarriage after divorce are sufficiently similar to those raised by homosexuality to be helpful.  For one thing, issues of marriage and remarriage go to the heart of Christian sexual ethics and the moral commandments of the Old Testament, perhaps more than do issues of homosexuality because of their broader applicability in the population.  Indeed, the issue of remarriage after divorce might logically rise to a higher level of ethical concern because of the procreative potential of heterosexual relationships.  For another, remarriage after divorce raises serious questions of the application of biblical norms.

Remarriage after divorce also raises the apparent conflict of our theology of marriage and the pastoral needs that arise among some of our people.  Indeed, it calls into question two of the most basic principles of marriage, that marriage is intended to be lifelong and that it is exclusively reserved for one man and one woman (not one man and one woman at a time, but just one forever).  Issues of sin are certainly involved.  Jesus characterized remarriage after divorce as a very serious sin against God, spouses, and the sanctity of marriage itself.  Jesus noted that the Law of Moses allows for divorce as a concession to human weakness, in this case what he called hardness of heart.  As uncomfortable for us as it may be, what is biblically sinful is not divorce.  It is remarriage. Our current conversations concerning homosexuality may well call us to reexamine the Church’s care of persons who are remarried following divorce.

The intention here is not so much to suggest that we should necessarily reach the same solution to the pastoral care of homosexual persons as we have so far reached concerning the pastoral care of divorced persons who seek to marry again.  It is, though, to suggest that the process we used to work our way through the remarriage issue might well be a helpful model in working our way through the issues we now face. 

Of course, remarriage following divorce has traditionally not been permitted in the Church.  Scripture itself forbids the practice, either absolutely as in Mk. 10:11-12 or with the exception of divorces caused by adultery as in Mt. 19:9.  The Episcopal Church began struggling officially with the experienced complexities of remarriage after divorce, particularly whether the Church should ever allow the practice, as early as the General Convention of 1808.  That convention affirmed the Church’s traditional teaching on the subject, thus preserving its traditional theology of marriage, but allowing for the Matthean exception, in passing the following resolution:

Resolved, That it is the sense of this Church, that it is inconsistent with the law of God, and the Ministers of this Church, therefore, shall not unite in matrimony any person who is divorced, unless it be on account of the other party having been guilty of adultery.[1]

The substance of the 1808 resolution was enacted as Canon 13 of Title II by the 1868 General Convention.[2]

The matter, however, was not permanently resolved.  It remained very much controversial and was considered in the deliberations of the General Conventions of 1877, 1880, 1883, and 1886.  A joint committee appointed in 1883 reported in 1886.  It contrasted the church’s traditional teaching on marriage and “the prevailing public sentiment” for “more easy separation” stemming in part from the ease of contracting first marriages in the civil law, even for persons as young as 12.  A proposed canon with strict requirements for marriage after divorce was considered by the conventions of 1886, 1889, 1892, 1895, and 1901, failing to be adopted each time.[3]

The General Convention of 1904 narrowly passed the precursor of current Canon I.19.3 after four days of debate in the House of Deputies. The 1904 version read as follows:

No Minister, knowingly after due inquiry, shall solemnize the marriage of any person who has been or is the husband or the wife of any other person then living from whom he or she has been divorced for any cause arising after marriage. But this Canon shall not be held to apply to the innocent party in a divorce for adultery; provided, that before the application for such remarriage a period of not less than one year shall have elapsed, after the granting of such divorce; and that satisfactory evidence to verify the facts in the case, including a copy of the Court’s Decree, and Record, as practicable, with proof that the defendant was personally served or apprised in the action, be laid before the Ecclesiastical Authority, and the Ecclesiastical Authority, having taken legal advice thereon, shall have declared in writing that in his judgment the case of the applicant conforms to the requirements of this Canon; also provided, further, that it shall be within the discretion of any Minister to decline to solemnize any marriage.[4]

It is worth noting that the proposed canon as submitted to the 1904 Convention made no allowance for remarriage after divorce, thus adopting the Markan, as opposed to Matthean, tradition. The convention, however, reverted to the Matthean pattern and included a pastoral exception for the innocent party in the case of adultery. Proposals to eliminate the exception were proposed but not passed by the General Conventions of 1910, 1913, 1916, and 1919 despite a strong report to the 1916 convention arguing in favor of eliminating the exception since, for pastoral reasons, the church’s refusal to bless a marriage did not necessarily result in an exclusion from the sacraments.  Interestingly, the proposed repeal of the Matthean exception failed on a vote by orders in 1916, a large majority of the clergy being in favor and a small majority of the laity being opposed.[5]

The debate continued, both as to eliminating the Matthean exception, which failed to pass in the House of Deputies in 1925, and as to extending the Matthean exception so as to allow the remarriage of the innocent party in any divorce, which failed to pass in the House of Bishops.[6]  For the first time, however, liberalization of even the Matthean exception was before the church’s attention.  The Convention of 1931 revised the marriage canon and continued the Matthean exception.  Two interesting proposals came before that Convention.  One would have allowed remarriage after divorce for any reason if doing so were determined by an ecclesiastical court to be pastorally advisable, i.e., “that the spiritual welfare of the applicant would be served thereby.”[7]  The other provided for the blessing of a civil marriage of previously divorced persons.  Both were rejected. 

It is, though, the General Convention of 1937 that addressed the remarriage issue in ways most reminiscent of the current debate regarding homosexuality.  A joint commission reported to Convention on the subject and noted that the Church’s teaching on remarriage after divorce was largely being ignored by its people.  The practice of procuring annulments in the Eastern Orthodox Churches and the Roman Catholic Church was rejected as being divorce under another name. The commission specifically addressed whether an individual bishop or even the entire church has the power to take any action contrary to the teachings of Christ.  In words that sound very familiar to contemporary ears the report stated:

Many leaders in the Church assert without hesitation that the teaching of Christ in this matter is perfectly clear: viz, that the re-marriage of any divorced person constitutes adultery and that such remarriage sanctions and condones a definite sin. . . . The obvious reply is that we should not be discussing this matter at all if Christ had made his word perfectly clear. . . .[D]ifferent churches, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Roman Church, our own church and various Protestant Churches, have interpreted His word in different ways.[8]

Nevertheless, the convention rejected proposed canonical amendments that would have permitted remarriage of the innocent party after divorce for any reason and that would have allowed bishops to permit remarriage for any cause “if equity and good conscience” require, which I would propose meant “for pastoral reasons.”[9]

The debate continued though the Conventions of 1940 and 1943, the 1943 Convention seriously and explicitly considering pastoral concerns regarding families and marital failure.  Mention of the Matthean exception dropped out of the canon in the revisions made in 1946 but with an interesting result.  Remarriage after divorce became canonically possible in The Episcopal Church, subject to certain conditions and requirements related to pastoral practice, but only according to the interpretation of some bishops. The canons (specifically Canon I.18 of 1946) provided for remarriage following determination by a bishop that, if certain specified conditions were “shown to exist or to have existed which manifestly establish that no marriage bond as the same is recognized by this Church exists, the same may be declared by proper authority.”[10]  The ambiguity of the words “shown to exist or to have existed” resulted in a diversity of practice among the dioceses.  In some, the practice was to allow remarriage only when the specified impediment existed before the dissolved marriage was contracted.  In others, remarriage was presented even if the impediments only arose after the dissolved marriage was contracted.

The General Convention of 1949 considered the ambiguity, and amendments were introduced to resolve it one way or the other.  A special committee of the House of Bishops reported in a thoroughly Anglican way that the canon as it stood was advantageous in its provision for breadth of opinion and diversity of practice.  It noted:

But as a matter of fact there is no ambiguity here. The Canon recognized two points of view as legitimate; one, that if one or more impediments existed before the marriage, no marital bond was created; the other, that if one of the impediments arises after marriage, the marital bond is broken. . . . Under our present canon no Bishop who holds that only nullity justifies a second marriage need do violence to his conscience; and, on the other hand, a Bishop who holds that causes arising after marriage can dissolve the bond is permitted to give judgment accordingly within the limits of the general causes list . . . or impediments.[11]

No amendments to resolve the diversity in practice in favor of uniformity were adopted, either in 1949 or upon reconsideration in 1955.  They were again presented in 1958 on the argument that year by distinguished canon lawyer Jackson A. Dykman that “there should be no Canon susceptible of different construction in the several Dioceses. . .so that marital status may depend on domicile and the position toward permanency of the marriage bond of the Bishops at a particular time.”  Bishop Stephen Bayne argued in response:

It would be agreed by the great majority of the bishops who administer the discipline of the Church, that the present Canons, imperfect as they are, do permit a positive and redemptive approach to the heavy problems of marriage and divorce in our society; that they do permit approximate justice to be done without corroding our witness to Christian standards; and that, perhaps most important of all, they permit the accumulation of a store of experience which will, in due course, enrich and purify our moral theology in this area. This last is, perhaps, the most important function of canonical legislation.[12]

The proposed amendments again failed, preserving a diversity of practice for explicitly pastoral reasons as well as in the interests of the unity of the church.

The canonical ambiguity was ultimately resolved by the General Convention of 1973, which recognized “the principle that marriage could be declared null.”  The current canon on remarriage was adopted with very little difference by substantial majorities in both houses.  The 1973 revision “deletes all reference to the time when the impediment existed or the breakdown of the marriage occurred [and] also omits the requirement that a judgment of nullity or termination be given on the basis of the impediments or general causes of failure listed in the earlier canon.”[13]  The 1973 canon “removed from the jurisprudence of this Church the canonical prohibitions of the remarriage of anyone whose first marriage was valid from its inception and whose former spouse was still living.”[14] It did so, it must be noted, having found a way to wrestle with what appears to be a very clear teaching of Scripture, even of dominical stature, to the contrary.  And it did so, over time, for expressly pastoral reasons.

The ambiguity of 1946 is highly instructive to how we might find a way through our current challenge.  The language to the effect that the impediment to marriage must be shown “to exist or to have existed,” effectively allowed complementary integrities to exist simultaneously.

First it should be noted that the 1946 canon is certainly not necessarily ambiguous.  Its plain meaning would seem to be that remarriage was permissible if the impediment were found to exist either before (i.e., grounds for annulment of an invalid marriage) or after the marriage was entered (i.e., grounds for divorce of an admittedly valid marriage).  The canon was read, however, to have an ambiguous meaning allowing two entirely inconsistent pastoral practices based on the integrity of the bishop.  The ambiguous reading is that the language “to exist or to have existed” means that a bishop may allow remarriage for one reason or the other, and possibly (the more liberal reading) but not necessarily (the more conservative reading) for both.  In other words, the ambiguity is understood to mean that one bishop might allow remarriage if the impediment was found “to exist” after the marriage was entered and another bishop might allow remarriage only if the impediment was found “to have existed” at the time the marriage was entered.  Whether or not the ambiguity existed or was intended, the General Convention of 1949, as well as others, explicitly refused to resolve it in favor of clarity so as to eliminate the inconsistency in pastoral practice.

The willingness to allow and live with the inconsistency without premature resolution accomplished two results.  One is that bishops of different theological understandings of the meaning of Scripture were able to work together with both their integrity and their differences honored.  Unity, which bishops are called to guard, was not broken.  The second result is that the General Convention, no doubt with the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the resulting atmosphere that made non-threatening conversation possible, was able to resolve the issue finally and peacefully at the General Convention of 1973.  The issue was not finally resolved until a conversation took place in a non-threatening atmosphere and a consensus on the subject emerged. 

It took from 1808 until 1973 to resolve an issue that raised exactly the same set of theological concerns.  We should perhaps be a little more patient with ourselves while seeking a way to employ the lessons we can learn from our own experience to the issues posed by homosexuality.

In many ways what we are dealing with right now is less about the underlying substantive issue, homosexuality, and more about how we live together in times when opinions are strong and no consensus exists.  There is every reason to be confident that committed, intelligent, and faithful people who struggle with the issues will be rewarded with truth.  What cannot be predicted is when.

The salvation we seek is not in knowing the whole of God’s mind, for we will never do that fully and we have gotten ourselves into spiritual trouble when we have equated salvation with knowledge.  The salvation we seek is in working through this issue and, like it or not, working through this issue is something that can only be done by us together (otherwise, I suppose, there would be no work to it).  If we can live and work toward the fullness of God’s truth with humility, patience, and forbearance, there can be no doubt that salvation will follow.  God, after all, has patience enough.

The content of the Christian faith, which we seek, cannot be separated from the real challenges of living together, our community life.  That is why faith and order are not two different things but actually two aspects of the same thing.  The ministry we are given is given to us as a community (Jn. 20:21-23).  The promise of Christ to be with us is given to us as a community (Mt. 18:20 and 28:20). The mission we are given is given communally (Mk. 6:6b-7; Lk. 10:1).  The Christian faith is inherently communal.  It is imperative to the salvation we seek that we not give up, either by walking away from each other or by seeking to force our wills on one another.  The inextricable connection between the content of the faith and the living out of that faith in community makes it imperative that we all remain in the conversation.  Indeed, in Baptism we are linked with one another in Christ permanently, not by our own doing but by God’s.

My observation is that all the rational thinking in the world is not going to resolve the issues regarding homosexuality, at least not right now.  The way forward, it seems to me, is to focus on the relational. The rational will work itself out in time, but it cannot do so, or at least is much less likely to do so, unless we focus on the relational first.  The truth is much less likely to emerge unless we turn our attention from the substance of the issue to the process of discerning God’s will together, from the rational to the relational, from reason to emotion.  In order for truth to emerge, it is a prior necessity that we paradoxically step away for the moment from trying to determine what the truth is, or even worse whose it is, and concentrate instead on making room for those who see the truth differently than we do.  I am not saying that any of us should abandon the search for truth.  I am saying that it would serve the interests of truth to concentrate first on how we can seek the truth together.  Complementary integrities may present such a way.  The way we handled remarriage after divorce is a case in point.  We have, in fact, been here before.

Might there be a way to reclaim the creative tension of the 1946 remarriage canon to facilitate the patience that we all need?  Our desire to relieve that tension may be born more of anxiety, intolerance for pain, or maybe neurosis than love for truth.  I am convinced that the way forward will be found in complementary integrities, the simultaneous articulation of a commitment to the truth as we see it and a commitment to stay connected with those who see it differently.

So, in the environment of our current challenge, how do we foster complementary integrities?  First, attempts to resolve the issue prematurely must be vigorously avoided.  The approach of the original text of Resolution D-051 at the 2003 General Convention, which would have resolved the matter by starting the process of church-wide approval of rites to bless same sex relationships is one course to be avoided.  Similarly, though, the approach of the Presentment made against Bishop Walter Righer, which would have effected the opposite solution, is the same basic approach.  Both approaches seek a resolution that disallows one of the complementary integrities.  Both are inadequate to the challenge before us.  Anglicans at our best can manage, and have shown that we can best serve truth by, living in the tension of complementary integrities.

The way out of the bind that is keeping us stuck on the issue of homosexuality would be to appreciate the potential of the tension of complimentary integrities and seek the graceful ambiguity that promotes it.  Promoting a situation not unlike that leading to the remarriage canon could work to allow truth in its time to emerge, a precondition for which is a community of theological difference engaged in theological conversation and reflection for the good of the whole.  What would be essential is the acknowledgement, like that of the special committee of the House of Bishops prior to the General Convention of 1949, that a variety of pastoral practice was being permitted across the church in a way that required no one to violate his or her conscience to his or her own behavior.  It might, I would suggest, be possible within a diocese to reach a similar creative tension by allowing different pastoral practices across a diocese in a way that requires neither congregation nor priest to compromise conscience.  As with remarriage, two points of view might thereby be recognized, though inconsistent with each other, as both legitimate in an environment in which equally committed, faithful, and intelligent people of differing perspectives can believe strongly in their positions but acknowledge with humility that it is also possible that they might be wrong.

Our search for an appropriate pastoral approach to the remarriage of persons who have been divorced has been greatly assisted by the gracious way we have been able to deal with our significant differences on theological issues.  The way we have dealt with each other is at least partly due to the passage of an ambiguous canon (I.18) in 1946 to govern the remarriage of divorced persons.  That canon was interpreted in two completely inconsistent ways, one that allowed people with admittedly valid marriages that ended in divorce to be remarried and another that did not.  Inconsistent pastoral practices were thus allowed to exist from diocese to diocese based on the Bishop’s interpretation of this canon.  The General Convention, in fact, refused quite explicitly to resolve the inconsistency when asked to do so in 1949, 1955, and 1958.

The issue of divorced persons who have remarried and their place and role in the life of the Church has not been resolved in the Anglican Communion.  What would be especially helpful to us in our current conversation is the manner in which the remarriage conversation has taken place with mutual respect and forbearance.

There are several things worth recalling about the Church’s experience with the remarriage conversation.  First, the Church struggled with the issue with patience for a long time.  Within The Episcopal Church, our General Convention dealt with the issue for explicitly pastoral reasons at almost every meeting beginning in 1808 until 1973, at which time our current canon governing the subject was passed.  The Lambeth Conference has also dealt with the issue for a long time, beginning in 1888 and most recently in 1988, so far without a definitive resolution across the Anglican Communion.

Second, The Episcopal Church was able to agree on its current remarriage canon by first passing an ambiguous canon and then acknowledging that different Bishops would employ different pastoral approaches representing complementary theologies and readings of Scripture. 

Third, the availability of different pastoral approaches has not been understood to dilute our accepted teaching on the indissolubility and exclusivity of Holy Matrimony. Our marriage liturgy with its emphasis on lifelong intention and exclusivity between the parties remains unchanged in any significant way.

Fourth, our inconsistency of pastoral approach to remarriage after divorce, although involving important theological issues, has divided neither The Episcopal Church nor the Anglican Communion even though we are demonstrably not of one mind on the issue.  Our common mission and proclamation of the Gospel has benefited as a result.

The role of homosexual persons in a certain type of relationship in church leadership logically follows from the Church’s position on those relationships.  Rather than resolving the relationship issue, though, we have intensified it by consenting to the consecration of a gay man in a partnered relationship to the office of Bishop in the Church.   Applying the same pastoral theology and in good faith, we have reached different results on our consents to that consecration. 

Again, the model of remarriage following divorce may be helpful.  There are, and have been, many members of our House of Bishops, as well as priests in charge of congregations and lay leaders, who are divorced are remarried.  Although remarriage of divorced persons and their ordination to the episcopate is allowed in our Church, the issue remains a point of disagreement in the Anglican Communion.  Indeed, I suspect that our practice of allowing divorced persons to remarry with a Bishop’s permission, even though shared by some other of the Provinces of the Communion, represents a minority of the world’s Anglicans.  In spite of the similar nature of the issues, the Anglican community has not expressed any reservation about consecrations of our divorced and remarried Bishops and has demonstrated an admirable collegial ability to work with us as brothers and sisters in the Lord.